The Outliers had come, I say, to the top of the cañon at dark, for they had not been very sure of the way, and had scorned to squeeze further help from their captive. They hung there straining through the dusk to take the lay of the land and for the moment forgot the lad. He must have had some good stuff in him, for all that afternoon he had been white with high resolve, when they thought him merely frightened. The Outliers’ party halted where the coiled and undulating strata flowed down the sides of the cañon like water lines in old bas-reliefs. Under the wiry trees they made out sparkles of red and green and figures moving. Just then the boy managed, by slipping on a pebble, to bring his throat a foot from Noche’s hand and to let out a cry formless and anguished, breaking off in mid-utterance like a trumpet torn asunder. To it succeeded the sound of a limp body dropping among disjointed stones, the rush of the Outliers going down, and the scuttling of the Far-Folk in the blind gully like scared sheep in a runway. It was very quickly over. The cry had done its work and the advantage of the ground was all to the Far-Folk; dark people as they were, the dark befriended them. When the Outliers loosed their slings the first sound took them into cover. There was heard the crack of the sling stones followed by sharp groans, but by the time our men got down to the twisty trees there was not a spark of the Treasure nor one of the Treasure lifters. They stumbled on some of the Far-Folk women who had lingered to wake the sleeping children, and took them, with a good part of their baggage. By the time the moon came up there was nothing to be seen of either party but one slim body of a lad, with his back broken, growing cold in a deep cairn of stones. Persilope moved on with the slingsmen to keep the trail of the Far-Folk warm, and Mancha, who preferred the work that promised earliest news of Zirriloë, came back with the captives to River Ward. In the early half light, as they traveled, they were aware of a tall woman with long hair blowing, who came and stood on a hill overlooking them for long enough to have counted all the captives. When she had told them over, she wrung her hands and bit upon them, and vanished into the morning mist. I supposed it must have been Ravenutzi’s wife. She was still looking for some clue of him and had not found it. We moved, all of us, from Windy Covers that day to a place beyond the Ledge, but near enough to the Gap for us to fall back upon our own country if need arose. That night, before Mancha got in from the Smithy, Herman came back again. It was the pale end of night, the moon was gone ghost white, and the wind was awake that runs before the dawn. I was lying sleepless in my bed under the buckthorn when I heard the whisper of their arrival on the far side of the camp.